The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 31, 2024, and is the first installment in a series on the efforts to explore East L.A. cityhood.

It’s not uncommon for people to refer to East L.A. as the "City of East L.A." After all, L.A. culture is heavily influenced by East Los Angeles, a region that is home to the historic 1968 Walkouts and where iconic films like Blood In, Blood Out and Stand and Deliver took place.

But East L.A., a region of nearly 120,000 who are mostly Latino, is not a city.

There is no mayor or city council making decisions for East L.A. residents. That’s because East L.A. is an unincorporated community within the county of Los Angeles.

The representative of East L.A. is county Supervisor Hilda Solis, whose district — in addition to East L.A. — includes portions of 20 other cities, as well as dozens of unincorporated communities and City of L.A. neighborhoods that encompass nearly 2 million residents. In East L.A., services like police, street maintenance, building and development, libraries and parks and recreation are deferred to the county.

Given the size of East L.A.’s population and its cultural significance, some residents would like to have more say when it comes to decision-making in the region. They want to know if East L.A. is getting an equitable share of county services. And, they’re calling on the county to be more transparent in how it spends on services across the region.

Efforts to incorporate East L.A. into a city have failed in the past, with one of the latest attempts failing in 2012 when the Local Agency Formation Commission for the County of Los Angeles found that the unincorporated area would not be able to financially sustain cityhood.

Most recently, state Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo — whose jurisdiction includes unincorporated East L.A. — introduced a bill to the state Legislature this spring that seeks to explore whether cityhood, or incorporation, is possible.

The bill, AB 2986, is moving forward, but not without opposition.

What is AB 2986?

The bill calls for a study exploring whether East L.A. has the tax base to be able to sustain itself as its own city or special district.

Introduced by Carrillo in March, the bill initially called for an 11-person task force — made up of stakeholders and residents appointed by the Local Agency Formation Commission for the County of Los Angeles (LAFCO) — to conduct this study. LAFCO, an independent agency that approves the formation of cities, in 2012 denied a proposed incorporation of East L.A.

Guadalupe Mural at La Milagrosa Market in East Los Angeles.

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Antonio Mejías-Rentas

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Boyle Heights Beat

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The bill, however, has since changed.

Now, instead of the LAFCO-appointed task force, the bill establishes the County of Los Angeles as the agency required to submit a feasibility study by March 2025 that analyzes if East L.A. has the fiscal viability to become a special district or city.

Carrillo has made it clear, the bill would not mandate cityhood. It would simply study the possibility of it.

“We want to see better representation,” Carrillo said at a community meeting in April. “I no longer want to hear what’s not feasible, I want to hear what’s possible.”

The bill, as it stands, would cost the county an estimated $14 million, according to a letter from L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport.

Why did the bill change?

The bill changed after a number of amendments were made at a July 3 hearing of the state senate local government committee. The bill moved forward, as amended, with a 5-0 vote.

These amendments reflect language from two motions that Solis spearheaded and that the rest of the county supervisors unanimously approved in April and May. With these proposals, Solis, who opposes Carrillo’s bill, is saying the county can do this work without overreach from the state.

Wendy Carrillo and Kristie Hernandez at the listening session.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Now, the proposed bill mandates the county to conduct the feasibility study, as well as give annual reports detailing services and investments in unincorporated communities with populations of over 10,000. The county would also produce campaigns informing unincorporated area residents about county services, projects and programs.

The latest developments have spurred confusion among some residents who are unsure what this means for the proposed legislation.

Some say the bill was “gutted,” after the LAFCO-established task force — which was to meet quarterly and incorporate “robust community engagement” — was removed to instead appoint the county to prepare the study.

Particularly confusing is the fact that both Solis and Carrillo have touted the amendments as a win, even as the supervisor continues to oppose the legislation.

Solis said that the latest version of the bill, rejects the original language, and reaffirms the bill is “duplicative, fundamentally flawed, and expensive.”

Carrillo, however, said she made these amendments as a way to hold county officials accountable. She told the Beat that the attention brought to the bill ultimately benefits the residents of East L.A., no matter who leads the study.

Who favors this bill?

Supporters of the bill include advocates calling for more transparency on tax revenue generated by the community. They’re also asking if an equitable share of county services are funneled back to East L.A.

Kristie Hernandez, a longtime community organizer and East L.A. resident, supports Carrillo’s efforts and said investments in the community should reflect the fact that the region is the largest unincorporated area in California. Hernandez said residents also have a hard time navigating county bureaucracy.

Business owners like Tony DeMarco gathered at Carrillo’s listening session in April in support of her bill. DeMarco stressed the need for more economic stimulation along Whittier Boulevard.

Other supporters include the East L.A. Coalition, Maravilla Community Advisory Committee, Los Angeles Lowrider Alliance and the Whittier Blvd Merchant Association of East Los Angeles, among others.

If her bill passes, Carrillo said it signals that “the state has invested in having the county report to the Legislature.”

“It starts off a process of real transparency and real local community voices being part of the process,” Carrillo said.

Who opposes it?

Solis and her office have been quick to publicly oppose the bill, noting that cityhood efforts have failed in the past. The supervisor has pointed to the LAFCO study that projected a massive deficit, concluding that the East L.A. area would not be able to adequately support services like a police force and fire department, things the county already provides.

Some East LA residents held signs voicing their opposition to the bill.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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LAFCO opposes Carrillo’s bill, according to its chief officer Paul Novak.

“We remain opposed to the bill, even in its amended version,” Novak told the Beat.

East Area Progressive Democrats representatives called the bill a “slapdash effort” in a letter addressed to the state Senate. They said the money to fund the study should instead go directly to residents.

Others in East L.A. fear a loss of community services and that their taxes could be raised if cityhood happens down the line. Some have shared those concerns on Solis’s Instagram page and during public comment during a County Board of Supervisors meeting in April.

Among other opponents of the bill are East L.A. Community Corporation, the City of Monterey Park, and dozens of other county, union and grassroots groups.

What happens next?

The seven members of the Senate Appropriations Committee will review the bill in August. The bill still needs to be voted on by the full legislature before heading to the governor’s desk for a signature or veto.

If the governor signs the bill, the county would be required to report its findings by March of 2025. If it fails, the county will still conduct its proposed cityhood feasibility study and report on county investments in East Los Angeles with results to be shared in the early fall.

At a community meeting on Saturday, July 27, Genesis Coronado, a renter in East L.A. said that even if the bill fails, it still spurred conversations about government transparency and holding elected officials accountable, things she marked as a win for all East L.A. residents.

Lawmakers on Thursday killed a controversial plan that could have allowed grizzly bears to one day return to California.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee spiked Inglewood Democratic Sen. Laura Richardson’s Senate Bill 1305. The measure would have tasked the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a “roadmap that evaluates whether, and under what conditions, reintroduction of the grizzly bear is feasible and advisable.”

As is typical with the Legislature’s appropriations committees, lawmakers didn’t discuss the bill; nor did they take public testimony before the committee’s chairperson, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland, announced the decision.

Wicks later told reporters that before intentionally reintroducing grizzly bears, the state must figure out how humans can best coexist with predatory wildlife. She pointed to the controversial return of gray wolves to California and the subsequent loss of cattle.

“The state needs to really invest in how we are actually addressing and dealing with those conflicts,” she said.

Grizzlies once lived across most of California. As many as 10,000 may have roamed before the Gold Rush. They were so prevalent that when California settlers tried to form their own nation, they called it the Bear Flag Republic. A grizzly bear is memorialized on California’s flag.

Settlers systematically exterminated the animals. They were gone by the 1920s, leaving the smaller black bear as California’s only surviving native bear species.

Two Native American tribes consponsored the bill, and several animal welfare and environmental groups supported it. They argued that bringing the second largest land predator back to America’s most populated state would right an ecological wrong and help restore California’s degraded ecosystem.

Opponents included ranchers, hunting associations and rural communities. They argued California is far too populated with people to sustain another apex predator. Rural communities are already overwhelmed with conflicts with mountain lions, black bears and wolves that attack livestock and wander into their towns, opponents said.

The measure set aside no funding for the study, but it allowed for a future Legislature or an outside group to do so.

Yue Stella Yu contributed reporting.

Irvine opened a new pedestrian bridge this week that lets you pedal, scoot, or walk over the 5 Freeway.

I threw my bike in the car and went to check it out.

I parked at Cypress Community Park in Irvine and was soon biking over the 5. The bridge is only for pedestrians, bikes, and scooters — so no cars to worry about.

A new bridge in Irvine opened this week. It stretches across the 5 Freeway and connects to other trails in the city.

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The bridge, which opened on Aug. 11, is a key link in Orange County’s network of trails that can take cyclists and pedestrians all the way from the hills to the Pacific Ocean.

“It looks like they nailed it. This is great," said James Connolly, who was on a scouting trip from his home in Costa Mesa.

“ I wanna take my e-board, which can go about 30 miles, and go all the way to here and then turn around and go back, you know? It looks like that's feasible now," he continued.

The new bridge in Irvine opened this week.

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Jill Replogle

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Sadia Kahn was trying to keep up with her two young boys, who were on scooters.

“ It's our first time here. We've been watching the construction for a while, so yeah, we're excited," she said.

Khan said she has come to really appreciate Irvine's network of parks and trails.

“Prior to having kids, it would just give me like the heebie-jeebies by how like manicured it is and then you have kids and you're like, "Oh, I get the hype," she said. "We've drank the Kool-Aid is what I'm trying to say.” 

There’re plenty of skate parks in the region — skateboarding, after all, got its start in Southern California. But a skate park of another kind has risen on the banks of the L.A. River.

It’s for fingerboarding.

The L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark is four feet tall and sits atop a bank of dirt barriers installed by the Army Corps of Engineers about a decade ago to control floods.

The view from the back end of the L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark.

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Dañiel Martinez

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If you know, you know

There’s no exact address, finding it for yourself is part of the experience.

A group photo of fingerboarders at the the L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark.

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Ryan Diaz

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“ The whole purpose of it is for you to get out and to use your brain and to discover the world, it just makes things fun,” said Ryan Diaz, who manages social media accounts dedicated to the fingerboard skatepark.

No one knows who built it or when it was built, but videos of people doing tricks on miniature ramps and rails started showing up on social media in March.

Diaz instantly recognized the location and decided to check it out. At that time, it was six by six feet — that’s before he started to add to it.

Others joined in and Diaz began documenting the expansion.

The park is about 90 feet long.

“Everyone does say if it wasn't for me, none of this would be happening,” Diaz said. “I was just happy to motivate people, bring out their creativity.”

Skate therapy

Levi Hernandez and his fingerboard.

Levi Hernandez performs a trick with his fingerboard.

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Dañiel Martinez

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Levi Hernandez shows off his fingerboard.

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Dañiel Martinez

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Levi Hernandez is from El Monte. It was his fourth time visiting on a recent Wednesday in July, but he’s been fingerboarding for nearly a decade, including at local events like ShredderMania.

He said he’s learning something new at the park.

“ It actually almost feels like real skateboarding in a way," Hernandez said. "Where your fingers end up sliding and where you're popping, it's just a lot of practice.”

Jimmy Tran of Chinatown is a regular that stops by the park on his way home from work every day. He used to skateboard – the real kind – regularly but had to stop after a bad injury.

Jimmy Tran performs a trick with his fingerboard.

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“ I could do the same tricks as skateboarding, but I don't have to get hurt at all, honestly. And I still have the satisfaction of landing a really clean trick,” Tran said.

Tran says it’s a place he can relax, be himself, and feel like a kid again.

Saturdays are for building

Gilbert Medrano (left) and Ryan Diaz (right) co-manages the park.

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Ryan Diaz

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Ryan Diaz

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Build days to expand the park are on Saturdays.

“We have kids that come from the neighborhood, and we teach them how to pour concrete and stuff like that, kind of like a big brother role,” Diaz said.

Besides the usual skatepark obstacles like ramps and rails, the crew also add art, including a large “LA” sign in Dodger Blue and requisite graffiti like the shark Diaz painted as a tribute to Jaws on a quarter pipe ramp.

Darren Mojica performs a trick on the quarter pipe ramp.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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Diaz’s dream is for the park to be recognized by the city as a local landmark.

“I want the spot to last, and for years to come for people to come and visit,” Diaz said.

Saturday build days include decorating the park with graffiti and art.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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A hardware store isn't where you’d expect to find a drawing class, a matcha pop-up or plant sales. Unless you're at Anzen Hardware, an 80-year-old staple that nearly disappeared from Little Tokyo in 2023.

The business reopened in November, and it’s been trying to find its groove in a neighborhood where legacy businesses are moving out — such as Suehiro Cafe and Rafu Shimpo — while navigating a different world from when it first opened.

“We're noticing the need for hardware tools is declining,” said Philip Hirose.

Jo Ann Maehara Hirose, along with her son Philip Hirose, are the new owners of Anzen Hardware. They are also the daughter and grandson of the founder.

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Philip Hirose is bringing new programming, from matcha pop-ups to drawing classes, to the reopened Anzen.

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Fiona Ng

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Hirose and his mom, Jo Ann Maehara Hirose, are the new owners — the grandson and daughter of the founder. With the help of trusted family friend Rockett Ito Wong, Anzen is carrying on its legacy as it becomes something new.

"None of the three of us have that much experience with running retail stores," said Wong, a college student. "It's been quite a bit of trial and error."

Eight decades on First Street

Tsutomu Maehara opened Anzen Hotel Supply, a precursor to Anzen Hardware, after being incarcerated at Tule Lake during World War II.

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Tsutomu Maehara — Jo Ann Maehara Hirose’s father — settled in Los Angeles after being incarcerated at Tule Lake during World War II.

In 1946, he founded Anzen Hotel Supply on First Street to sell provisions to nearby single-room hotels.

Anzen Hardware from its early days in Little Tokyo.

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"As soon as I could hold a broom, we were sweeping the streets or the sidewalks outside," Maehara Hirose said.

Anzen eventually pivoted to selling American hardware and imported Japanese tools and goods — including bamboo garden rakes and handcrafted knives from a company that once made samurai swords.

Twenty-year-old Rockett Ito Wong is a longtime family friend and runs the floor.

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“It's always a discovery,” said Mike Okamura, president of the Little Tokyo Historical Society and a patron since Maehara was behind the cash register.

Maehara Hirose remembered Anzen imported one of the first rice cookers from Japan. “A National. That one-button one,” she said. “They were flying off the shelves.”

These days, tariffs are making it harder to keep and find suppliers. Still, Wong has just brought in a shipment of knives and chisels.

“I don't even think it's been a question that we would source any of this stuff not from Japan,” he said.

The shop still sharpens knives. In fact, Wong is the guy responsible for the job.

A reluctant homecoming

In 2023, then-owner Nori Takatani, a distant relative of Maehara who had worked at Anzen since he was a teen, put the store up for sale. He was in ill health and asked Maehara Hirose and her husband to take over.

She was hesitant, having opened the restaurant Azay several years earlier. She worried about taking on a second business. Besides, there were two prospective buyers, both invested in preserving Anzen's legacy.

But one day, Takatani told her the deals fell through because the landlord was jacking up rent.

Wong was able to find a new supplier from Japan for an order of new wood chisels.

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“You gotta buy it,” he told her.

Anzen Hardware returned two years later at one of its previous locations, 200 E. First Street.

“It was great news and great joy,” Okamura said when the community found out who the new owners were.

More than a hardware store 

On a July evening, about a dozen people, pencils and paper in hand, were at Anzen to learn how to draw.

Their subjects were Patty and Carrie — friends in their 70s — who ended up regaling the participants, some decades younger, with stories of their lives and community advocacy work.

The “Memory Capsule Drawing” class was taught by Kris Chau, an artist and loyal patron. She still brings in the knife she bought a decade ago for sharpening.

In July, Philip and artist Kris Chau organized a drawing class at Anzen Hardware. The models were two 70-something community activists.

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Kris Chau

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Courtesy Kris Chau

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She said she was inspired to start the drawing class after Hirose said he was noticing that some elders were losing confidence and purpose.

"Even though you could see the light within Carrie and Patty, they were like, 'Why would anybody wanna draw us?'" Chau said. "The young students were just, like, in tears at the end of class."

That, along with the store’s matcha pop-ups, plant sales and artist collaborations, may just be what a legacy neighborhood business needs to survive.

“Philip [Hirose] is taking it forward, but keeping in mind the history and paying tribute to it,” said Okamura, who has been helping out at both Anzen and Azay since he retired as a banker.

“I see the old Anzen — the same counters and some of the hardware too,” he continued. “But then I see other things — the programming inside the store, which has never been done before.”